"Union Owned and Operated"

- Charles Krauthammer 06/17/2011: WASHINGTON -- "Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected," observed President Obama this week, enjoying a nice chuckle about the unhappy fate of his near-$1 trillion stimulus. To be sure, Obama has also been promoting a less amusing remedy for anemic growth and high unemployment: exports. In this year's State of the Union address, he proclaimed a national goal of doubling exports by 2014. 

     
One obvious way to increase exports is through free-trade agreements. But unions don't like them. No surprise then that for two years Obama has been sitting on three free-trade agreements -- with Colombia, Panama and South Korea -- already negotiated by his predecessor. 
     
Under the pressure of dire economic conditions and of the consequences of stiffing three valued allies, Obama appeared ready to relent -- only to put up a last-minute roadblock. He's demanding an expansion of Trade Adjustment Assistance -- taxpayer money (beyond unemployment compensation) given to workers displaced by foreign competition, something denied to Americans rendered unemployed by domestic competition. It's an idea of dubious fairness but nicely designed to hold up ratification, while placing blame on Republican heartlessness rather than on political sabotage by Democrats beholden to unions for the millions they pour into Democratic coffers. (A deal reportedly may be near. But the years of delay have been costly.) 
     
Nothing new here. In 2009, Obama pushed through a federally run, questionably legal, bankruptcy for the auto companies that robbed first-in-line creditors in order to bail out the United Auto Workers. Elsewhere, Delta Air Lines workers have voted four times to reject unionization. A federal agency, naturally, is investigating and, notes economist Irwin Stelzer, can order still another election in the hope that it yields the answer Obama's campaign team wants. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE